


A Day at the Zoo

by TheLadyOfWorlds



Series: A Day in the Life [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Domestic Avengers, Friendship, Gen, Life Snippets, Oblivious Steve Rogers, POV Steve Rogers, Slice of Life, Snarky Tony Stark, daily life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 00:00:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18767020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyOfWorlds/pseuds/TheLadyOfWorlds
Summary: A day off for Steve Rogers turns into some introspection and guidance.Guess you can't stop being Cap, even just for one day.





	A Day at the Zoo

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Marvel or any of the characters.  
> I am using them purely for fun and creative purposes!  
> ____________
> 
> This was born from an idea started by Evil Slicey on the amazing [Marvelous Shipyard Discord](https://disboard.org/server/537441880997363712) and I just had to write it, even if it did get a little out of hand!

Tony sighs and pushes his plate of half finished blueberry pie away, fixing the man opposite him with as stern a look as he can manage.

 

"You're kidding, right?"

"No!" Steve Rogers shakes his head with an almost sheepish grin, "I'm serious. There's a new giraffe at the zoo and I am going to go and see it. Today."

"Please, just humor me and tell me that giraffe is code for 'really hot woman'?" 

 

Natasha covers a laugh behind her hand as she gestures for a waitress to come over. "Nope. In this case, he literally means an actual giraffe, Tony."

 

The waitress, Anne, ambles over with a beaming smile aimed solely at Steve, placing a perfectly manicured hand on his arm as she bends down to talk. "You need anything else, hon?"

"Just the check, please ma'am," Steve smiles, polite as always, not noticing the megawatt smile dimming slightly or the fast retraction of her hand as her obvious flirtation goes unnoticed. She leaves, putting a little extra away in her hips as she walks - just in case.

 

Tony groans inwardly, sinking his face into the palms of his hands and looks at his friend through his fingers.

 

"What…?" Steve asks, confusion spreading across his face.

"You're hopeless," comes the muffled response, "we need to have a talk about how completely clueless you are."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The waitress. Is hitting. On you." Tony enunciates the sentence through his teeth as Anne returns and slides the check in front of Steve with another sun-bright smile and a cheeky wink. "See? With the winking and the serving you a huge slice of pie with extra whip cream? She likes you."

 

"Tony, you think everyone is hitting on me. Or you. Or the stranger across the street."

"She wrote her number on the check," Nat observes, tapping a slender finger by the hastily scribbled digits.

"Oh," Steve picks up the paper and squints at it, "would you look at that."

"Told you," Tony puffs himself up in the way he does when he's about to start crowing over something, "I'm always right."

"Hmm? No, no," Steve signals for Anne to come back, "she forgot to charge me for the shake I ordered!"

 

Nat stifles another laugh.

Tony begins banging his head gently on the table.

 

______

 

They part ways, Tony heading home to see Pepper for an entirely too brief moment, Nat citing some business to attend (which neither if them ask about because frankly, knowing is worse than imagining sometimes with what she does) and Steve decides to take a walk to the zoo and see that new giraffe.

 

It's a nice day, the sun is high, bright and just warm enough and the leaves are just starting to turn from various shades of green to show their jewelled edges of garnet red, amber and deep chocolate brown, heralding the start of autumn.

He takes a deep breath, inhaling the late morning air tinged with the earlier hint of a chill that has begun to settle over the city at daybreak.

 

He loves this place, not just the city, but the place he is in within himself - the man out of time still adjusting but adjusted enough to feel more at home here and now, rather than pining for the past, fervently wishing for what had been over what could be.

He knows the past has helped shape him into who he is now and there are definitely aspects he wishes were still with him, but he knows now that there is no use in willing the past to live in the present; not when there is so much good he can do now with the future laid out bright and confusing and full of possibility before his feet.

 

The zoo entrance looms ahead and he takes out his day pass (another thing the others, well, Tony let's be honest here, tease him about mercilessly) and takes himself to the giraffe enclosure.

 

"Steve!" A happy voice greets him, "I knew you'd be here today!"

"Mrs Sanders," he bends and hugs the small woman that has bounced up to him, "how are you? Is Gary doing okay now after his accident?"

"Oh, he's just fine. Daft boy brought that on himself with all that jumping from buildings nonsense! And how many times - its Ellie to you!"

 

Steve smiles warmly, knowing as well as she does that he would never be so improper as to call her by her first name and turns to the giraffes as Ellie Sanders points out the new arrival and fills him in on all the new happenings at the zoo.

 

He's been coming here for years, something about the presence of the animals comforts him in some small, strange way and as such, he has struck up friendships with a few if the zookeepers - Ellie being one of them.

She's in her 70's, not that you would know from how she holds herself and the spark in her eyes makes her feel much younger when you get her into talking about her passions. 

Over the years, Steve has learned that she was originally a Navy nurse (she left after falling pregnant with her first son) and has six sons - all a handful, all boisterous, loud boys that ran amok, all dirty hands and scraped knees; shouting and pushing and teasing each other constantly. But among all the usual sibling fights and tussles, the arguments and frustration with sharing and accepting hand-me-down clothes and old toys the six boys were inseparable and loved each other fiercely and unconditionally. 

Ellie would recount tales of climbed trees, broken bones and, more often, broken hearts; school years and the loneliness when her little birds flew the nest and forged their own lives with the tools her and her husband had given them.

Spread out across the world, she sees them for Christmas when they can and the occasional Thanksgiving, but Steve has become something of a surrogate son to her. More than once she has told him how much he reminds her of her James, the name sending a pang of loss and regret through Steve that he covers with a kind smile and yearly birthday and Christmas cards that she keeps with the ones from her sons in her memory boxes; so his friend doesn't feel quite so alone and he doesn't feel the keen sting of his own losses quite so badly.

 

He bids his friend goodbye after she shows him a photograph of her new grandchild - a bonny little girl her son, David and daughter-in-law, Angela had named Bethany and he promises to come back soon so they can have lunch together and catch up properly.

 

He moves on, towards his favourite part of the zoo - the big cat enclosure.

Something about their quiet strength and dignity calls out to him and he can lose hours just watching them prowl and play, always alert, always ready to fend off an attack against their home, their family.

 

"Hullo Mr Rogers," a quiet voice comes from behind him and he turns to see Phoebe, the young assistant to the lady that looks after the cats. "It's gonna get busy in a bit, that special ed school has a trip here today."

"Thorn Gates School, you mean?" Steve nods and gently corrects the girl, "I think they prefer to be referred to as children with learning disabilities, rather than special ed."

Phoebe shrugs, not teenager sullen as one would have expected from her age group, but apologetic instead and nods, "sorry."

"It’s fine, Phoebe, it's tricky to navigate," Steve touches her shoulder and she grins at him, "just remember that kindness goes a long way and if you don't know how to refer to a person, always ask."

"I never know how to talk to them," she scuffs her shoe in the dirt, watching a lion stretch, languid and fluid. "I don't wanna upset them."

"You won't. The fact that you're concerned and want to know how to address someone who's perhaps perceived as different in any way at all is good. It means you want to be able to include them. And that's all people want - to be included. Part of something."

 

Loud chattering and cheering breaks the conversation as the school trip approaches and Phoebe leaves to get her mentor.

The bright, happy sounds of the children make Steve smile.  

Although his childhood had been far from happy and friendship had been in short supply for a boy like him, he had fond memories of the friendship he had created, the bond formed tight and unbreakable with Bucky Barnes. Comrades in arms, best friends, brothers against everything thrown at them - the worst events that life had delivered to them and they still found their way back to that bond with each other.

He looks up, pleased to see Phoebe in deep conversation with one of the teachers accompanying the children, and then returns his attention to the lions pacing and rumbling their displeasure at their food being delivered later than usual.

 

A cheer goes up from the crowd as the keeper enters the outer part of the enclosure and begins her talk on the animals along with their scheduled feeding, but the cheer is muted by a small, quiet sound of distress that pipes up from near Steve’s elbow.

He looks down to see a small, slender boy in a wheelchair who looks near tears and at first Steve wonders if it is fear of the large cats prowling so close to the woman dangling haunches of meat tantalisingly close and he bends down to eye level and smiles in what he hopes is a comforting manner.

 

“Don’t worry, she knows what she’s doing, she won’t get hurt,” he says gently and is surprised when the boy huffs a bitter laugh.

“That isn’t why I’m sad, sir,” he replies, “I can’t see. I haven’t been able to see anything all day because the teacher and the assistants are busy with the others.”

 

Steve is taken aback.  First by the use of  _ “sir”  _ which he hasn’t heard as an honorific from children in years.  Nowadays there is so much more  _ informality _ and it has taken a lot to get used to that; especially when he is so set on clinging to as much as he can from the time he more vividly remembers.

More than that, he is taken aback by the resignation in the young lads voice, the world-weary, almost ground down tone that colours his words so plainly.  How much had this soul had to cope with, how much had been placed upon his too-skinny shoulders at such a young age? 

It wasn’t fair, he thinks, to place such burdens on one so young, those who had the world at their feet and then had their life altered in so many a cruel way.

 

He straightens and looks around, finding nobody around to help and makes a snap decision, bending back down to the young boy.  “I can help you see a little easier, but it might be a little strange for you. Would you like me to help?”

 

The boy nods eagerly, not caring it would seem about whatever this kind stranger is about to do and Steve grins down at him.

He whoops in pure delight when Steve picks up his chair as though it weighs nothing more than an empty cardboard box and holds him up to see the lions feasting and lazily batting at each other to protect their piece of the meal.

 

Eyes turn to watch, one assistant gasps loudly as realisation hits the crowd of people that Captain America is among them and lifting one of their students high up enough so that he too can enjoy the day as everyone else has.

 

After some time, Steve lowers the chair, sets the boy down and kneels in front of him, happy to see pure delight written across his face.

 

“They were  _ huge _ !!  Did you see?  I’ve only ever seen them in television shows, thank you so much!”

“You’re very welcome, young man,” Steve reaches out and pats his shoulder, startled when a slender, cool hand touches his.

“How did you get so strong?  I wish I could do that, I’m just weak and useless.”

 

Steve frowns and leans closer to the boy, as if letting him in on a great secret; which in a way, he supposes, he is about to do just that.  “I’ll tell you something, if you promise to keep it a secret?” The boy nods and makes the  _ cross my heart  _ gesture solemnly.  “Alright. When I was young, I was this scrawny kid.  I was always sick with something, always. And people laughed at me when I wanted to join the US Army because they said it would never happen, I would never be strong enough; I was always going to be this weak kid with nothing going for him.  You know what, though? I proved them wrong, every one of them. Because I  _ believed _ I could do it, in my heart, I knew that one day I would do something great.  And you will too, you will.”

“How do you know?  I’m stuck in this stupid chair, I can’t even walk.  I’ll  _ never _ be strong.”

“Strength isn’t always muscle and brawn,” Steve takes out his ever present notebook and a pencil and writes something down, folding the paper and handing it to the boy.  “Strength is knowing who you are, finding your path in life and following it no matter what. Strength is found with the friendships you make, the family you find along the way.  Sometimes, it’s even in knowing what you  _ can’t  _ do and then figuring out what you  _ can  _ do.  It’s in your mind, your heart and in the small, every day actions you take.  That is what makes you strong. And you? You’re going to do something amazing with your life, I just know it.”

 

He stands and salutes the boy, hopes that something he said has resonated somewhere and the boy grins as he clumsily returns the salute, piece of paper clutched tightly in his fist.

Steve leaves soon after that, not wanting to draw more attention to himself than he already had done with his actions.  He stops to check in on Ellie once more, making a date for lunch at his favourite diner where they always remember his name and seat him in the same booth every time.

His last stop is the customer service desk where he asks a few questions and purchases a small stuffed lion, writing a quick message on the tag -  _ your strength lies in your bravery, never forget that  _ \- and instructs the lady with kind eyes and a knowing smile to pass the lion to the young boy in the wheelchair, regretting not having asked his name; never wanting to reduce him to his disability.  The woman understands, though and when they shake hands she holds his a little tighter, a little longer and Steve leaves feeling as though something great and mysterious has happened but not knowing quite what.

He hopes the lad will use the information he wrote on the paper one day and when or if that happens, he will be there to answer and help in whatever way he can.

 

One last stop, he thinks and then home.

 

______

 

Tony sits heavily at his desk and wonders where all this new paperwork has come from.  

At the top of the pile is a leaflet for a nearby school named Thorn Gates which is in dire need of funding for new equipment, extra assistants and a new wheelchair ramp.

 

“Alright, Steve,” he shakes his head, taps the leaflet and reaches for his chequebook.  “I think Iron Man can help out here.” 


End file.
